The Netherlands: A Failed State in a Failed Continent (in Ab Aeterno Jrnl of the Academy of Social & Political Research 2010, issue 4

The Netherlands:
A Failed State in a Failed Continent
Alfred Vierling
1.
COMING INTO EXISTENCE AND RAISON D’ÊTRE OF THE STATE OF
THE NETHERLANDS
Nederland (=low land, Netherlands, Pays-Bas) is merely named after its
geological condition and is not...
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The Netherlands:
A Failed State in a Failed Continent
Alfred Vierling
1.
COMING INTO EXISTENCE AND RAISON D’ÊTRE OF THE STATE OF
THE NETHERLANDS
Nederland (=low land, Netherlands, Pays-Bas) is merely named after its
geological condition and is not referring to its original tribe like England or France.
Its
first statehood was established in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht and got international
recognition in 1648 by the Peace Treaty of Munster with Spain, from which it separated
as a confederal ‘Republic of the Seven Provinces’, somewhat similar to Switzerland.
The governor, the Duke of Alba, had the nobility replaced by a centralist
bureaucracy loyal to the Catholic occupant The Spanish King Philip II, against whom
revolt was instigated by the Calvinist expelled lower elite, mobilising the new
mercantile bourgeoisie against a 10% income tax imposed by Alba.
Its creation was
promoted by France and England as a buffer between their otherwise common borders
and like Switzerland as a bre
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